Monday, 25 November 2013

Week 6

'Writing is an active occupation, not a passive one....waiting for inspiration is like waiting for friends. If you sit around the house and don't go out and meet them, they will never come. You have to make things happen.'

I'd completely forgotten to write today. Life happening everywhere around me, birthdays, Christmas, children, the dog and now a hamster! Chapter for week 6 suggests using ourselves as a starting point for writing and how our stories can be applied in many ways. Feels reassuring to know that writing this blog is helping my progress especially when it doesn't look that way to the outsider. I know that my novel in waiting will walk a fine autobiographical line and am really intrigued as to just how deep it will go. It definitely feels that the writing of it will be the best therapy I can get and actually the therapy I need with no walking away saying that I'm fine now, thank you!

I've spent many years looking at myself in the mirror, wanting to know what was going on inside and wondering why it wasn't working for me. Many hours spent trawling the self-help shelves in any shop with a book section, searching for the book with my name on it and all the answers. Sessions with psychiatrists, counsellors, friends. Training courses in neuro-linguistic programming, cognitive behaviour therapy, to name a few. All in vain. It feels that here, with this story, I will begin to understand; understand and accept. Accept myself for who I am, what I am and why I am here. That I will be able to become a human being and not a human doing. And that gradually, I will be able to look at myself in the mirror and just smile back, knowing that I am ok and that I don't need to know the answers.